North Korea has abolished a series of economic cooperation laws with South Korea, the North Korean state press confirmed on Thursday (8), in another gesture that deepens the deterioration of ties between the neighboring territories.
The decision, which affects the law on North-South economic cooperation and the law on the special zone for foreign tourism on Mount Kumgang, was adopted unanimously at a plenary meeting of the standing committee of the Supreme People's Assembly (Parliament), the Supreme People's Assembly (Parliament) said. state news agency KCNA.
The first of the regulations is considered a “framework law” for cross-border economic cooperation, while the second affects the Mount Kumgang tourist complex, where South Korean company Hyundai Asan has made major real estate investments.
The Mount Kumgang complex, located in southeastern North Korea, operated for a few years as a site visited by tourists from the South, until a South Korean woman was shot dead by two North Korean soldiers in 2008. Since then, the place no longer received groups of tourists from the South and since 2019 the North Korean regime ordered the expropriation of several Hyundai Asan assets.
The abolition of these laws comes a month after North Korea dismantled several bodies in charge of cross-border matters (including one in charge of managing the tourism program in Kumgang) and dictator Kim Jong-un assured that the South is the main enemy of his country and that reconciliation and reunification are now impossible.
Since then, Pyongyang has held artillery exercises near South Korean islands on the tense and disputed western inter-Korean maritime border and conducted six weapons of mass destruction tests, including four cruise missile tests.
This Thursday (8), the day on which the 76th anniversary of the North Korean Army is celebrated, state media encouraged the strengthening of military preparation to face a possible external attack.
An editorial published by the newspaper Rodong he stated, for example, that the Army is determined to “completely devastate” hostile forces if they decide to attack the country.
After the failure of denuclearization negotiations with the United States in 2019, North Korea chose to modernize its weapons, reject offers of dialogue and get closer to China and Russia, with whom it has been exchanging weapons, while Seoul and Washington reinforced their mechanisms of deterrence and military cooperation, which took the peninsula to new historic levels of tension.
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